Maraurders/he exists (and movie contamination note)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 169209

"wileras01" wrote:
<snip>
> Now none of the characters have a significant reaction to the spell.
They, however, do not have the reader's knowledge of the potential
damage the spell can cause.  The reader, once the true danger of the
spell is revealed, can go back and examine this scene and understand
how close James was to dying.  Aimed a little lower and that slight
cut could have opened James throat killing him well before medical aid
could have arrived.
> 
> We know from the title this memory is important.  Also given how
little we get to see of the events from the marauder days we have to
figure that each detail in this memory is important.  It seems to me
to be very odd to include this spell along with Levicorpus, if the use
of both in the scene isn't significant.
> 
> So here we have Snape using Sectumsempra and missing.  Depending on
your view of Snap's current character I can see this easily leading to
the chapters title. <snip>

Carol responds:

Funny how differently readers react to and interpret scenes in canon.
First, with regard to the chapter title, I don't quite trust it since
the narrator is generally limited to Harry's pov. Snape placed *three*
memories in the Pensieve. How can the limited omniscient narrator, who
has yet to enter Snape's mind, know that that particular memory is the
worst of the three? (Worse than confronting a werewolf? Worse than
finding that the Potters have been killed despite his efforts,
assuming DDM!Snape? Worse than anything he did and regrets as a DE or
being tortured at some point by Voldemort, if that happened?) Maybe
the humiliation of having his own spell used against him in front of
the whole fifth-year class, complete with Lily's intervention and
whatever happened afterwards, really is his worst memory, but I don't
trust that title any more than I trust "Snape Victorious" in HBP. IMO,
they both reflect Harry's perspective, which may or may not be accurate.

More important, I really don't think that the cutting hex Severus used
on James is the full-fledged Sectumsempra, and I certainly don't think
that he "missed." *If* it was Sectumsempra, it was tightly controlled
and limited. Had he aimed at the throat as you suggest, James would
have died and Severus would have been at least expelled and probably
sent to Azkaban, sixteen years old notwithstanding.

The bystanders and James himself are unconcerned because James is not
suffering or bleeding uncontrollably. He's still his (IMO) arrogant,
bullying self without a change in his behavior, aside from trying to
defend his behavior by saying that he bullies Severus "because he
exists," throughout the scene. There's no sign that he even needs to
go to the hospital wing, or, if he does, there's nothing wrong with
him that Madam Pomfrey (no Dark Arts expert) can't cure with a wave of
her wand.

I think that in a fair match, Severus could have more than held his
own, especially given the invented spells he had up his sleeve, and we
see that he already had quick reflexes (just not quick enough to deal
with two people who already had their wands out). But the Sectumsempra
spell is labeled "for enemies," implying that his enemies had done
something really terrible to deserve such revenge, so it seems to me
that he probably invented it in his sixth year after the so-called
Prank, when he *really* had reason to hate Sirius Black, at least.

Even if he had already invented Sectumsempra, AFAWK no one but Severus
himself knew the countercurse, which does not appear in the margins of
the Potions book and perhaps had not yet been invented or discovered.
But Sectumsempra ("cut always") is a Dark spell that results in a cut
that can't be healed with a simple wave of the wand like the nonverbal
spell DD uses to heal his own knife wound. I think we'd have heard
about it if Severus had to use that counterspell on James, or if James
had a permanent gash on his face, whether or not the bleeding stopped.

I really don't think that James was close to dying, nor that Severus's
use of the cutting spell he did use has anything to do with why that
spell is his worst memory, if indeed it is. What we do see in HBP is
his resentment of James and friends for using his own spells against him.

BTW, despite explanations I've seen onlist, I still wonder how James
learned Levicorpus and Liberacorpus, which are nonverbal, and how he
could have known them in fifth year when they were written in a
sixth-year Potions book. (It makes sense for Sectumsempra to be in
that book since the so-called Prank occurred in sixth year, but not
for Levicorpus and its countercurse to be there.) At any rate,
Sectumsempra would certainly have been developed later than the
schoolboy hexes elsewhere in the book, after he had real reason to
hate the Marauders.

Carol, just presenting an alternate view 

P.S. Aside to Goddlefrood regarding "movie contamination" in a
different post/thread:

I see the sequence of events, meaning what Snape witnessed, exactly as
you do, having also read the chapter carefully. I was a bit surprised
at your suggestion of movie contamination and realized that it must
apply to Peter and what he could have overheard. I was not picturing
the scene as it occurs in the film, with the Harry/Sirius conversation
outside the tunnel. I was merely pointing out that Wormtail was in
human form and fully conscious at that point and might have overheard
the conversation, whereas Snape, being unconscious, could not have
overheard. However, as I conceded offlist, it's likely that he was
preoccupied with his own predicament and wasn't paying much attention
to Harry. OTOH, the fact that Lupin transformed into a werewolf and
that Black is a dog Animagus is material to the story that we know he
told Voldemort; he could not have escaped had they not both
transformed. (Please, if you accuse me of movie contamination, be
specific, so I can defend myself!)

Thanks,
Carol